CHESTER Literature Festival's first week of events proved a success with packed venues and sell-outs.

Tickets continue to sell briskly and among those already sold out in coming weeks are sports and TV personalities James Cracknell and Ben Fogle, news presenter George Alagiah and broadcaster Joan Bakewell.

Other celebrities booked to speak throughout the October festival include William 'Ken Barlow' Roache, Robert Powell and Liza Goddard, classical actor Michael Pennington and MP George Galloway.

Guest author Judith Flanders gets things off to a passionate start this evening (Friday, October 6) when she talks about her new book, Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian England.

Following on from her previous best-seller, The Victorian House, which inspired a TV series, the author delves into the pastimes of the era and highlights the hardships of many as well as the indulgences of the few before rampant consumerism took hold.